Watch as poor Asimo takes a spill during a presentation in Japan. The operating team doesn't skip a beat, quickly pulling out a screen to give Asimo some privacy.

Poor little guy. His voice just keeps on talking while he's all piled up on the floor.

I saw Asimo at the University of Minnesota a couple years ago. While the robot's ability to balance and maneuver stairs is interesting, I was a little bummed to see that everything was orchestrated from behind the curtains, Wizard of Oz style. It didn't appear that Asimo was equipped with any autonomous behavior. So really-and feel free to disagree-I think falling down a flight of stairs is probably the most human thing he's done to date.

Some time around March, I started receiving a number of random instant messages from people I've never met before. Apparantly, my AIM alias had been added to at least two online lists and people all over the world were busy importing me as a buddy.

I say "at least two" because the people who contacted me fell into one of two camps: people who thought they were contacting a celebrity and people who thought they were contacting a robot. As I talked to more and more of these folks, I began to discover something really disturbing about myself:

I consistently fail to be perceived as human.